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Results of 1/2 Year Strict Experiment

07-16-2013, 04:41 AM

Here are the results of my 6 month personal experiment. I've included a lot of detail in case it is of interest to others (it's probably one of the cleaner self-experiments conducted around here, cause I'm nuts like that). Tested all metrics at the end of December while on my regular diet, just retested after 6.5 months of 100% paleo.

Nutrition summary: Meat, fish, eggs, nuts, butter, heavy cream, vegetables. I cook with plenty of butter and have experimented with weird stuff like drinking glasses of heavy cream. Raw or undercooked meat fairly regularly. Lots of red meat and fish, almost zero pork/chicken. The widest variety of meat/vegi possible (bison, liver, duck tongue, obscure vegis, etc). Carbs were 40-80g most days. Calories were all over the place, 1500 to 5000 depending on my program at the time. Rules: 1) extremely limited fruit such as a few berries after workout, no high glycemic fruits ever, 2) extremely limited sweet potatoes, only after workout, if ever, 3) zero sugar, 4) zero cheese, 5) zero foods containing more than one ingredient, 6) very limited alchohol, 7) 90% dark chocolate (which violates two prior rules so only allowed 1/wk), and most importantly 8) not a single grain of rice, nor a single lump of wheat (try doing that in Asia dammit!).

I don't believe in 80/20, these six months have been an exercise in 100%; up at 5am every day, cooking everything in-house, grass-fed meat & butter, local grown vegis, wild fish, no budget. The amount of time spent gathering/cooking probably went up by 400%. The grocery bill went up too, a lot.

Workout summary: Cycling for the first 6 weeks, followed by barbell lifting 3-4x a week for 4 months. Workouts never exceeded 45min, that's my rule; in and out. Never missed a scheduled day.

Life Prior to this Experiment: Prior to paleo I ate a typical "healthy American diet" of dry chicken breasts, salmon, pork, brown rice, olive oil, delivery noodles, pizza on the weekend, occasional BurgerKing, sports drinks, lots of beer. Exercise included never ending cardio.

The blood test was as expected. I knew LDL would go up which is why I asked for a VAP beforehand, but doctor wouldn't let me have it. The doctor was shocked by my high HDL and seems to think I have an issue "you have fat in your blood". Total cholesterol went up but as far as I know that doesn't correlate with anything.

As far as the doctors voicing their puppet-like concerns hehe; I'm actually not closed minded. If LDL and cholesterol are an issue, I do want to know that. But I find it very hard to believe that every single marker of health would improve, from testosterone to fasting blood sugar, while LDL and total cholesterol are the only ones that move the "wrong" way? I think what is more likely is that doctors don't know what they are talking about. Either that or I really did drink too much heavy cream.

So your total cholesterol was 143 before? That's quite an increase. I agree that it appears that they know less about cholesterol than they think they do if raising your cholesterol comes along with a whole lot of other good changes to your body.

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Great job Kimchi. I would say you have effectively become "younger" in six months time.

Yeah. Cholesterol measuring is less than worthless on its own. I can only imagine negative effect from measuring and manipulating cholesterol without considering factors that are causing your body to behaving the way it is in the first place. Thats where they got it all wrong. Cholesterol is like the ultimate downstream coorelative marker. Manipulating it synthetically is futile. No worries for yours IMO. Again congrats!

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Great job Kimchi. I would say you have effectively become "younger" in six months time.

Thanks dude, enjoy your posts.

Mark did an "open letter to doctors", asking they wake up. It would really help if they stopped being part of the problem. I'm hard headed, but I imagine many people stop doing what's working and get guided directly into metabolic syndrome land.

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How did you manage to find grass fed in Asia? I have been in Korea for a year (one more to go!) and I get the weirdest looks when I ask questions at the market and then they just go on like I don't know what I'm saying. Really frustrating.

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1. How do you "feel"? Do you feel better?
Yes. It has been a gradual shift, the kind you don't really notice until you look back. My mood is better and have an increased sense of calmness. The other interesting thing, and I don't even really want to say this cause the average person will just roll their eyes, I'm pretty sure I added 5-10 points to my IQ. Being dead serious. My work involves a lot of analysis, and I really notice an improvement in my work. It makes sense to me that the same food that grows the bicept, and heart, also grows the brain.

2. How's your skin? any difference
Improved, same story as a lot of people report. It was one of the early changes that family/friends commented about; rosey or whatever.

3. How are your energy levels?
Way better than six months ago, and it's still changing. For example when I went in fasted to get my blood test last week I felt solid, aftwards didn't need food but ate anyhow. Six months ago I was ready to pass out from not having carbs and required a muffin immediately after the blood test. Gym recovery really started to kick in at four month mark, before that I would get exhasted from lifting and my body craved fruit/sugar, it was pathetic. Now I can lift like crazy, and not feel a need for sugar. I think I used to be a carbo-addict.

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How did you manage to find grass fed in Asia? I have been in Korea for a year (one more to go!) and I get the weirdest looks when I ask questions at the market and then they just go on like I don't know what I'm saying. Really frustrating.

Red meat is a bit of a cluster here, I just do the best I can. I fly around a lot and chow on bison/deer when in the states. Found excellent grass-fed butter/cream at the foreign mart in Seoul. But steak is still a frustration, they tell me han-woo is grass-fed, but then when I question experts they tell me it is not grass-fed and that KR doesn't have such a thing. It's a bit of language/concept barrier and I still don't know for certain. There's AUS grass-fed, have eaten a lot of that.

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So your total cholesterol was 143 before? That's quite an increase. I agree that it appears that they know less about cholesterol than they think they do if raising your cholesterol comes along with a whole lot of other good changes to your body.

As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.

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Good job! It's tough to stick to healthy eating while traveling a lot and especially living abroad. What is in store for your next 6 months? Whenever I try something new, I like to do it hardcore for a minimum of six months then make some slight tweaks.

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Shh. Don't say that. Then people won't have a reason to take low-T meds.

i doubt anybody from big pharma is on this board.

As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.

– Ernest Hemingway

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Good job! It's tough to stick to healthy eating while traveling a lot and especially living abroad. What is in store for your next 6 months? Whenever I try something new, I like to do it hardcore for a minimum of six months then make some slight tweaks.

Exactly. My theory was if I didn't do it hardcore I'd never be able to pinpoint what drove the change, if there was a change.

The plan was a 1yr trial ("not a single grain of rice in 2013") with a 6mo measurement. Since it is working I'm not going to make any major tweaks. But I have increased fish, all the evidence points to our ancestors eating a lot of it. I was butter only, but now am adding in some olive oil. May do some ketosis / IF to get down to 12% BF.